Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|ゼルダの伝説 トワイライトプリンセス|Zeruda no Densetsu Towairaito Purinsesu}} is the thirteenth installment in the ''Legend of Zelda'' series, developed by Nintendo EAD and published by Nintendo for the Wii and Nintendo GameCube. Originally planned for release in November 2005, Twilight Princess was delayed by Nintendo so the developers could add more content and refine the game. The Wii version was released on the same day the Wii was launched, making Twilight Princess the first Zelda game to debut at the launch of a Nintendo console. The GameCube version was released in December 2006, and was the last Nintendo-published game for the console. Twilight Princess is as of yet the only game in The Legend of Zelda series to be rated T by the ESRB, for fantasy violence and animated blood, though there are a few bloody situations in older 3D Zelda games. The story focuses on Link trying to prevent Hyrule from being engulfed by a corrupted parallel dimension, the Twilight Realm. To do this, he takes the forms of both a human and a wolf. He is also assisted by a mysterious creature named Midna. It is supposedly set after the events of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, following the timeline created after the events of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and is parallel to the events of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. The gameplay used by the game is similar to the other 3D Zelda’s in the series in terms of control and structure, while refining and expanding upon them. The game was very well received by most media and fan reviews, with major publications such as 1UP, CVG, EGM, Game Informer, GamesRadar, IGN, The Washington Post, and many other websites hailing the game as the greatest Zelda game ever made and has won numerous "Game of the Year" awards. The title is also widely considered to be one of the greatest games of all time. Gameplay Official Trailer qO3Adka18AA Twilight Princess is an action-adventure game that focuses on exploration and item collection. It uses the basic control scheme introduced in Ocarina of Time, including buttons whose functions change depending on game context, and Z-targeting (L-targeting on the GameCube), a system which allows the player to keep Link's view focused on an enemy or important object. Link can walk, run, and attack, and will automatically jump when running off of or reaching for a ledge. Link uses a sword and shield in combat complemented with secondary weapons and items, including a bow and arrows, boomerang, bombs, and clawshot. Z-targeting allows Link to lock on to an enemy and automatically defend. During Z-Targeting, projectile-based weapons can be fired at a target without the need for manual aiming. The context-sensitive button mechanic allows one button to serve a variety of functions, such as talking, opening doors, and pushing, pulling, and throwing objects. The on-screen display shows what action, if any, the context-sensitive button will trigger, determined by the situation. For example, if Link is holding a rock, the context-sensitive button will cause Link to throw the rock if he is moving, or place the rock on the ground if he is standing still. The Wii and GameCube versions feature several minor differences in their controls. The Wii version of the game makes use of the motion sensors and built-in speaker of the Wii Remote. The speaker emits the sounds of a bowstring when shooting an arrow, Midna's laugh when she helps Link jump, and the series's trademark "chime" when discovering secrets. The player controls Link's sword by swinging the Wii Remote, while aiming projectiles is done by pointing the Wii Remote at the screen. Aiming in the Wii version is done entirely in third person and allows Link to move while aiming. The GameCube version, more or less, uses the same control scheme introduced in The Wind Waker. Unique to the GameCube version is the ability for the player to control the camera freely; however, in this version, only two of Link's secondary weapons can be equipped at a time. The game features nine dungeons. Link navigates the dungeons and fights a boss at the end of each in order to obtain an item or otherwise advance the plot. The dungeons are connected by a large overworld, which Link can travel on foot, on his horse Epona, or by teleporting to one of several specified warp points. The controls for riding Epona remain mostly the same as in Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask. However, in this game, Link's sword and several items can be used while on horseback. Unlike the other games, Link can also take damage and be killed while riding Epona. There are a few missions and battles in the game that take place entirely on horseback. When entering the Twilight Realm, a void which corrupts parts of Hyrule, Link transforms into a wolf. As a wolf, Link moves quickly, attacks by biting, and digs holes to create new passages and uncover buried items. He also carries Midna, a small, imp-like creature who gives hints, uses an energy field to attack enemies, helps Link jump long distances, and eventually allows Link to "warp" to any of several preset locations throughout the overworld. As a wolf, Link has improved senses and can follow scent trails. Link's wolf sense is the only way players can see wandering spirits and hunt for Poes. The enemy's artificial intelligence in Twilight Princess is more advanced than in The Wind Waker. Enemies react to defeated companions and to arrows or slingshot pellets that pass by. The AI can also detect Link from further distance than in Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and The Wind Waker. Plot Setting The game's storyline takes place hundreds of years after Ocarina of Time. However, it is not in the same timeline as The Wind Waker which is also set after Ocarina of Time. In an interview that Nintendo Dream conducted with Eiji Aonuma in December 2006, he mentioned that there are two parallel universes within the Zelda series. He also stated in the interview that Twilight Princess and The Wind Waker were parallel to each other, but it remains to be seen whether this means they happen at the same time or not in their respective timelines. The split in the timeline occurs during Ocarina of Time, when, at the end of the game, Link is sent back in time by Zelda. Once returned to his original time, Link goes to see her again, and the result of this meeting is Link warning her (and presumably the rest of Hyrule) of Ganondorf's true intentions. As a result of this, their relationship with Ganondorf changes. Due to this, Ganondorf was hunted down and arrested. It was decided he be executed by the Ancient Sages but the execution failed because he possessed the Triforce of Power. Ganondorf broke free and killed the Sage of Water. The remaining sages quickly activated the Mirror of Twilight and banished him to the Twilight Realm. Twilight Princess then occurs several hundred years after the Ocarina of Time child Link's era. This would also mean that the game is set chronologically after Majora’s Mask. Meanwhile, The Wind Waker occurs in the 'original' timeline, hundreds of years after the adventure of adult Link in Ocarina of Time, where Ganon escapes the Sacred Realm he was sealed in at the climax of Ocarina of Time."Interview with Eiji Aonuma" (Japanese) translation: "ND – About when is the Twilight Princess timeline set? Aonuma – In a world several hundred years after 'Ocarina of Time.' ND – And 'Wind Waker'?　Aonuma – 'Wind Waker' is parallel. In 'Ocarina of Time,' Link jumps to a world seven years ahead, defeats Ganon, and returns to the time of his childhood, right? 'Twilight Princess' is a world several hundred years after that pacified childhood time." Twilight Princess displayed at E3 6pB647PE-80 In 2003, Nintendo announced that a new Zelda game was underway for the GameCube, developed by the same team that created The Wind Waker. A presentation by director Eiji Aonuma contained a reference to the working title The Wind Waker 2, and it was said to use a similar graphical style. Nintendo of America told Aonuma that North American sales of The Wind Waker were sluggish because the cartoon appearance created the image that the game was designed for a young audience. Concerned that the sequel would have the same problem, Aonuma told Miyamoto he wanted to create a realistic Zelda game that would appeal to the North American market. Miyamoto was concerned about merely changing the presentation instead of coming up with new gameplay ideas. He told Aonuma that he should start by doing what could not be done in Ocarina of Time, particularly horseback combat. In four months, Aonuma's team had created the horseback mechanic with a realistic presentation; Nintendo showed the new look with a trailer at E3 2004. The trailer caught many viewers off guard, and generated much excitement and hype among fans of the series and others in the gaming media. The game was scheduled to be released in November 2005 and was no longer a sequel to The Wind Waker. Miyamoto explained in interviews that the graphical style was chosen to satisfy demand, and because it better fit the theme of an older Link. Past Zelda games have used a theme of two separate, yet connected worlds. In A Link to the Past, Link travels between a "Light World" and a "Dark World"; in Ocarina of Time and Oracle of Ages, Link travels between two different time periods. The Zelda team sought to use this same concept. It was suggested that Link turn into a wolf, much like he turned into a rabbit in the Dark World of A Link to the Past. Aonuma left his team to continue work on the new idea while he directed The Minish Cap for the Game Boy Advance. When he returned, he found his team struggling. By emphasizing the two worlds and wolf transformation, the realistic Link was lacking. Aonuma also felt that the gameplay lacked the innovation of Phantom Hourglass, which was being developed with a touch-controlled interface for the Nintendo DS. At that time, the Wii was under development with the code name Revolution. Miyamoto thought that the Revolution's pointing interface was well suited for arrow aiming in Zelda and suggested that Aonuma consider using it. At the 2005 Game Developers Conference a second trailer was shown of the game showing Link exploring several areas and dungeons, while confronting a vast area of different enemies and bosses. At the end of the trailer, a clip was shown of a wolf howling at the moon. While Link becoming a wolf was not known to the public to be part of the game at the time, many correctly speculated from the trailer that the wolf was Link, and rumors of this began circulating around the gaming community. At E3 2005, the game was again shown with a new trailer and playable demo. It reveled and confirmed a lot of information about the game for the first time, such as the Twilight Realm, Link becoming a wolf, and the village at the beginning of the game. Nintendo released a small number of Nintendo DS game cards containing a preview trailer for Twilight Princess. Wii transition Aonuma had anticipated creating a Zelda game for what would later be called the Wii, but had assumed that he would need to complete Twilight Princess first. His team began work developing a pointing-based interface for the bow and arrow, and Aonuma found that aiming directly at the screen gave the game a new feel, just like the DS control scheme for Phantom Hourglass. Aonuma felt confident this was the only way to proceed, but worried about consumers who had been anticipating a GameCube release. Developing two versions would mean delaying the previously announced 2005 release, still disappointing the consumer. Satoru Iwata, president and CEO of Nintendo, felt that having both versions would satisfy users in the end, even though they would have to wait for the finished product; Aonuma started working on both versions in parallel. Transferring GameCube development to the Wii was relatively simple since the Wii is compatible with the GameCube. The team worked on a Wii control scheme, adapting camera control and the fighting mechanics to the new interface. A prototype was created that used a swinging gesture to control the sword from a first-person viewpoint, but was unable to show the variety of Link's movements. When the third-person view was restored, Aonuma thought it felt strange to swing the Wii Remote with the right hand to control the sword in Link's left hand, so the sword control was relegated to a button. Details about Wii controls began to surface in December 2005, when British publication NGC Magazine claimed that, when a GameCube copy of Twilight Princess, when played on the Revolution, would give the player the option of using the Revolution controller. Miyamoto confirmed the Revolution controller-functionality in an interview with Nintendo of Europe and Time reported this soon after. At E3 2006, Nintendo announced that both versions would be available at the Wii launch and had a playable version of Twilight Princess for the Wii. Later, the GameCube release was pushed back to a month after the launch of the Wii. Nintendo staff members reported that demo users complained about the difficulty of the control scheme. Aonuma realized that his team had implemented Wii controls under the mindset of "forcing" users to adapt instead of making the system intuitive and easy to use. He began rethinking the controls with Miyamoto to focus on comfort and ease. The camera movement was reworked and item controls were changed to avoid accidental button presses; however, the new item system required use of the button that had previously been used for the sword. To solve this, sword controls were transferred back to gestures—something E3 attendees had commented they would like to see. This reintroduced the problem of using a right-handed swing to control a left-handed sword attack. The team did not have enough time before release to rework Link's character model, so they instead flipped the entire game — everything was made a mirror image so that Link was now right-handed, and references to "east" and "west" were changed. The GameCube version was left with the original orientation. The official Twilight Princess player's guide focuses on the Wii version, but has a section in the back with mirror-image maps for GameCube users. Changes during development The final version of Twilight Princess contained several notable changes from what was seen in the early versions of the game. While never seen, the game was originally done in cel-shading, but this was changed early on for reasons mentioned above. The majority of areas seen in the first two trailers were removed or largely edited in the final product. Most notably was a large open ended forest with no boundaries that contained individual trees. Another large concept that was removed fairly early in development (before E3 2005), was when exploring the dungeons, players would see it in a top-down perspective similar to the ones in 2D Zeldas. When enemies came into contact, however, the camera would pan back into 3D view for combat. Probably the most visible change in the game's development was that of the game’s "twilight" which was originally a colorless world shaded in black and white. Only the characters themselves had any color to them. Link's voice was also the same as Adult Link's from Ocarina of Time. Another change made near the game's release, was the exclusion of a magic meter seen in other games. This feature can in fact still be seen on the back of the Wii version's box art. Several of the games enemies and bosses (such as Moblins or Beta Gohma) were either removed from the final product, or heavily edited from their original look and function. The game's placement in the Zelda timeline seems to have changed a few times. In an original interview, the game's director, Eiji Aonuma, said the game came after The Wind Waker. In a later interview at E3 2005 he said the game fell "decades after Ocarina of Time", but before The Wind Waker. Finally, he changed the game to be in its current position in the timeline when the game came out. Audio The score of Twilight Princess was composed by Toru Minegishi, Asuka Ohta, and Kōji Kondō. Minegishi headed music composition and sound design in Twilight Princess, providing all field and dungeon music under the supervision of Kondo. The official soundtrack, published by Nintendo Power in 2006, contains seven tracks. Other than this, no other soundtrack has been released, resulting in many fans distributing un-official soundtracks containing music ripped directly from the game disc. For the E3 trailer, Michiru Ōshima created orchestral arrangements of three pieces written by different composers, although only the piece by Mahito Yokota was used. Working on the trailer prompted Kondo to consider using orchestral music for the game as well—he envisioned a full orchestra for action sequences and a string quartet for "lyrical moments". Kondo always waits until he can observe the gameplay of a title before composing the score, to ensure that they mesh well. When the trailer was created, gameplay development had not progressed enough for Kondo to decide if an orchestra would be feasible. The final product uses sequenced music instead; Kondo cited the lack of interactivity that comes with orchestral music as one of the main reasons for the decision. Minegishi followed Kondo's example of matching the score to the gameplay and created music to elicit the feeling of melancholy he observed. As Link begins to save Hyrule from the effects of the Twilight Realm, the music takes on a more relaxed mood. There is little voice acting in the game. Link remains silent in conversation, but makes grunts when attacking and being hit, gasps when surprised and screams when falling from high places. His responses are largely indicated by nods and facial expressions. Other characters' voices are much the same as Link, where only laughing, grunting, and other emotional sounds are heard. The rest of the conversation is simply done by text. Midna also has the most extensive voice acting of any character in not only the game, but the series, as all of her dialogue is represented by audible (though unintelligible) vocalization. Critical reception Twilight Princess was released to universal critical acclaim and commercial success. It got perfect scores from major publications such as 1UP, CVG, EGM, Game Informer, GamesRadar, and GameSpy. On TopTenReviews, it has received an average score of 3.86 out of 4, the highest among all games in the Zelda franchise. On Game Rankings, it is ranked number 6 on the voting average list, the second highest among all Nintendo games, behind Super Mario World. On Japanese website mk2, it is one of the two games that got the highest score of "S" on the Wii, along with Super Mario Galaxy. In the PAL region, Twilight Princess is the best-selling Zelda game ever. On Metacritic, the Wii version has a metascore of 95 and is the second highest-rated Wii game on the site, second only to Super Mario Galaxy, while the GameCube version has a metascore of 96 and is the third highest-rated GameCube game on the site, behind Resident Evil 4 and Metroid Prime. Many publications including 1UP, CVG, EGM, Game Informer, GamesRadar, IGN, and The Washington Post have hailed it as the greatest Zelda game ever made. Game Informer called it "so creative that it rivals the best that Hollywood has to offer". GamesRadar praised Twilight Princess as "a game that deserves nothing but the absolute highest recommendation". Cubed³ hailed Twilight Princess as "the single greatest videogame experience". The game's graphics were praised for the art style and animation, although the game was designed for the GameCube, which is technically lacking compared to the next generation consoles. Both IGN and GameSpy pointed out the existence of blurry textures and low-resolution characters. Despite these complaints, CVG felt the game's atmosphere was superior to that of any previous Zelda game, and regarded Twilight Princess's Hyrule as the best version ever created. PALGN praised the game's cinematics, noting that "the cutscenes are the best ever in Zelda games". Some reviews have mentioned drawbacks about the game, however. The most commonly mentioned is that the game, having been designed for the GameCube, is not up to scratch with the cutting-edge graphics of its competitors, and that much of the game feels familiar to devoted Zelda fans, as though it is a compilation of Zelda's "greatest hits". Some aspects of the game's design have been more firmly criticized by a number of reviewers, such as the director of Ōkami speaking of his disappointment in the feel of the game's visuals. Regarding the Wii version, GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann said the Wii controls felt "tacked-on", although 1UP said the remote-swinging sword attacks were "the most impressive in the entire series". Gaming Nexus considered Twilight Princess's soundtrack to be the best of this generation, though IGN criticized its MIDI-formatted songs for lacking "the punch and crispness" of their orchestrated counterparts. During its first week, the game was sold with three of every four Wii purchases. The game had sold 4.52 million copies on the Wii as of March 1, 2008, and 1.32 million on the GameCube as of March 31, 2007. Category:The Legend of Zelda series Category:Wii games Category:GameCube games Category:Nintendo games